Figueres had brought along a camera to document the Bribris’ lives. She discovered that they loved to see photographs of themselves, and so every few months she would trek out of the village, by foot and by donkey, to get the pictures developed. Once, she also brought back a postcard showing New York City at night: “I thought, Let’s see how they interpret this. So I just showed them the photograph, and I said, ‘What is this?’
“ ‘Ah,’ they said. ‘All the little stars of heaven in rows!’ What a beautiful interpretation. They had no concept of what a lit city was. The only light they had seen at night was the stars. And then, all of a sudden, all these little stars were in rows! Now, funnily enough, I think about that response almost daily. Because my feeling is that all the little stars are aligning themselves in a different sense.”
From Elizabeth Kolbert's 8/24/15 New Yorker profile of Christiana Figueres, the UN official tasked with saving the world from global warming.
